Averting
by Revell
Summary: They don't feel the need for therapy; they can manage their own crises. Adam/Lawrence slash, AU, NOT compliant with anything after Saw I.


They've never considered therapy. Adam thinks the idea is absolute bullshit; he doesn't want to sit and have a chat about walls that hadn't seen the light of Tilex in years and hearts drawn on toilets in some sort of human byproduct (he finds that he can't remember whether it was blood or shit - he considers that to be an improvement, even if a therapist probably wouldn't give a rat's ass). He doesn't feel the need to tell anyone how the most disturbing noise in the world is that strange, thick buzzing when fluorescent lights turn on and that's why he and Lawrence use the light above the stove in the kitchen, never the overhead; he doesn't think he'll feel any better about life if he discusses nearly seeing Lawrence die and the reason for that prosthetic that still weirds him the fuck out.

He tells Lawrence that he won't go to therapy because he doesn't feel like talking about it right now.

"You'll never feel like talking about it," Lawrence points out, not looking up from his laptop.

"You can quit researching that shit and go talk your heart out if you want to, Larry. I'm not stopping you."

And Lawrence apparently doesn't want any therapy, either, because he shuts up and continues researching, and another crisis is averted. One less to worry about - they're allowed so many crises per week. It's a random line that they never really drawn, but as long as everyone is still sane by Friday, they haven't gone over their allotment.

They've only found the limit twice. Once was about a month after Adam came to stay for three or four days and just never left - Lawrence had gotten some sort of letter from Abby or Allie or whatever he called her, and apparently, that one letter had beaten the shit out of Lawrence's crisis allowance. He'd already had three or five or however many they usually had by Monday stacked up, and so Adam had come into the living room to find Lawrence burning the stuff she didn't take when she ditched him; since Adam didn't really have any say in what Lawrence did with Allison's stuff anyway, everything would have been great if Lawrence had actually been burning it in the fireplace. Adam very quickly acquainted himself with the location of the fire extinguisher, yelling at Lawrence about various things, like _fuck_ and _shit _and_ are you out of your goddamn mind_, only he found out ten minutes later that he was yelling at no one because Lawrence had retreated to his bedroom as soon as Adam had started spraying shit around haphazardly, killing the flames and the couch all in one go.

Adam wasn't even sure what the letter had said, and he didn't really care; he just decided to spare the living room any further eruptions of Mount St. Lawrence and intercepted the mail daily from then on, burning any letters from Allison that he found. He figured it would happen anyway; might as well do it in the fireplace.

They don't talk about the second time they found that limit; Adam doesn't even remember what caused it, though he thinks it might have dealt with nearly setting the kitchen stove ablaze, since apparently, anything that involved fire was not their thing. He just knows there was a lot of yelling and bitching and too much tequila, as they had run out of whiskey the night before; there was also too much silence from Lawrence, who had started to ignore him completely in favor of leaving the room and sitting in the study - and not even in front of the goddamn computer this time, he was just _sitting_ there on one of this place's fifty couches - and for some stupid reason Adam remembers the argument was set to Sinead O'Connor's wailing. He hadn't thought Lawrence was the Sinead O'Connor type, and it wasn't until almost a week later that he figured out that Lawrence probably wasn't, but Allison probably was.

They had fought then, and Adam had reached down drunkenly to shake him and Lawrence had grabbed him back, pulling him down onto the couch with him in an attempt to pin him down; then somehow there wasn't any transition, but there was warmth and breath and the feeling of his mouth slammed against Lawrence's, and the completely idiotic thought that Lawrence was one of the least sexy people Adam knew but he wasn't a bad kisser. The argument was gone, replaced by _Jesus I can't anymore _and _I know, I know, I know_ and _fuck, Lawrence, I_; Adam's fingers tangled in Lawrence's hair and by the time the night was over they were asleep for the first time in days, propped close to each other on his ex-wife's couch while Sinead wailed on over the stereo.

They haven't talked about it, but since then Adam crawls into bed to sleep next to him on most nights, and Lawrence doesn't question. He simply allows it and they fall asleep, and while Lawrence's presence doesn't get rid of the nightmares, it makes waking up terrified a lot more bearable. At least now someone else is terrified next to him after Adam jerks awake and accidentally smacks him in the face, and they can halfheartedly bitch at each other until they fall asleep again. One less crisis this week.

Adam thinks about it from time to time - really thinks about it, outside of the nightmares, usually after he's had too much to drink and too little sleep; he knows that even though what that sick fuck did to them might have changed them, he still feels like they'll be picked up again. In his mind they're usually thrown into a goddamn blender and given thirty seconds to find some way to turn it off before they're mangled, only they're chained to the sides and have to gnaw through their arms to do it. Or something.

He can just imagine the tape.

If they're picked up again, it'll be because Adam never leaves the house, because he drinks too much, because he still hasn't learned when to shut his goddamn mouth; because Lawrence won't let go of his ex, because he's obsessed with death, because he's taking too many pills. Because they're still alive, but they don't really know how to live anymore.

And when Adam is honest, that's why he doesn't want to go to therapy. He already knows all the things that Jigsaw would say about them, and he doesn't want to pay to hear it from someone else.


End file.
